Undead Grit
by BriLamperouge
Summary: A few months after exacting revenge on the man who killed her father, Mattie Ross receives a strange letter from Mr. LeBouf telling her about a deadly sickness gripping Texas upon his return home, and things afterwards take a stranger turn yet...
1. Chapter 1  Nightmares

I was so happy to be back home. That "coon hunt" as it been referred to, I openly admit, was too much for me at the time. I appreciated my three meals a day, and peaceful sleep at night, more than ever after that adventure.

But, I do not take it for granted. It, in many ways, made me stronger. Losing my left arm didn't seem so bad after all I gained. I gained two true friends, learned much, sometimes more than I would've liked at the time, and in the end, got what I wanted done, done. I had peace of mind.

It had been a good year since I got home, and I was still getting used to life with one arm. Mama helped me a lot, though I often claimed I could do things myself. Thank goodness I was not lefthanded.

I sat in my room, late one November evening, at my desk where I was, as unusual as it was of myself, excitedly ripping open an envelope containing a letter from Mr. LaBeouf. Normally I did not get so excited over such a simple thing. In his letter, Mr. LaBeouf had apologized for not sending a letter sooner, and that he had quite a considerable amount of news.

I leaned back in my chair, beginning to get lost in my reading. I considered that a flaw of mine, I got too into my books or letters when reading alone.  
I mused that Mr. LaBeouf had a nice cursive handwriting. I chuckled that it seemed quite feminine. It almost surpised me. Almost. But, the letter went as follows.

Dear Mattie Ross,  
My deepest apologies for not finding time to write you a letter sooner. Our adventure, If I may call it that, is one worthy of being written about. I had no time to really apologize for my childishness during our time together, so I ask your forgiveness now. I had much work to do, upon returning home to the Lone Star state, I mean, and I am taking this break now to write you a letter and enjoy some relaxation. I did miss my homeland, but now I find I am missing Arkansas and your and the Roosters', believe it or not, company. I have found, however, upon returning home, a strange sickness has taken hold of Texas-

I paused here in reading for a moment, rereading the letter thus far. It seemed a little strange at first, but, it was getting chillier and Mama said it would soon be Flu season. At the time, I believed perhaps Texas had gotten hit with it first. That was a silly thing to think, I know now. But I continued to read.

It continued with:  
The other Rangers and myself have been steadily riding from nearby state to state, in search of a cure. Many have died of this illness thus far. It is similar to a fever, I believe. I do not all of the details myself as I am quoting what a doctor has told myself and the others, since we try to stay away from those ill. One goes through a horrible fever, with coughing fits, and convulses every now and then before death. It renders one unable to eat, even soup, and all those whom have suffered it, have shrivelled up to but skin and bones and turned a nasty green. It is actually, very frightening, Miss Mattie, and I pray this illness does not spread to Arkansas, for you and your family's sake. I do not like to leave my state, in a time of need, but I feel safer outside of it right now. I am still in search of a cure for my friends and family back home, and I believe I will consult Arkansas next and pay you a visit while I am there. I must get some rest now, take care.

It ended with a: Yours Truly, LaBeouf. In his fancy signature.

I had been so into his letter, I had paid no mind to anything else but the writing on the paper in my hand. The thought of people, boney, sickly green, and convulsing in a doctor's clinic, I admit...scared me out of my wits. At that time, I wished I had not read it before bed.

A sharp rap came to my wooden bedroom door and made me jump, darting out of my chair. "Mattie! It is well past dark, you best go to bed or your going to have nightmares!" Mama warned me. "Yes ma'am. I'm going to bed now." I assured her. I was going to bed but I heavily doubted I would get any sleep with the image of what was in Mr. Labeouf's letter now in my head.

I knelt, said my prayers at my bedside, and climbed into bed. I was indeed going to have nightmares now, Mama...


	2. Chapter 2  Stay Safe

The next morning, I awoke with beads of sweat streaming down my face and a terrified expression upon my face, Mama said, as she had gotten me up early to watch Little Frank and my baby sister, Victoria. She was concerned a bit, as I was not one to usually have nightmares, but she claimed my staying up later than I was used to, was the cause of the bad dreams. With how bad they really were, I just agreed with her.

In my dream, I saw a man. Sickly green, with tattered, sweaty and bloody clothes, his face sunken in and lip chewed to expose rotting yellow, chipped teeth. Eye sockets were sunken in and dark, and eyes a horrible, cloudy and bloodshot look. In my dream I would inch closer and closer to this, early on, unfamilar man. He would shake and tremble, and cough something horrible. But I pressed on closer to him.

This man in the dream, was my father... I knew his face, despite the sickly sunken in look, straightaway. I woke with a silent scream when my mother shook me when he shot up in the dream reaching for me. She and Yarnell looked at me strangely , but the dream had shaken me so, I didn't want to even ask why.

"We won't be gone too long. Stay inside, and don't open the door for nobody." Mama warned me as usual. You'd think after a couple of years of saying it, she'd stop. It is wise advice, I understand now. I straightened up and braided my hair, and got dressed. I waved to Yarnell and Mama as they started off in a small cart.

Little Frank and Victoria were well asleep at this early hour, so I decided before going back inside I would just run by the barn and stable, and make sure everything was well. I knew it would be, but I liked to make doubly sure of things.

A few hands on the farm, up earlier than others, were feeding some horses and others readying some saddles. I was extremely curious at this point. "Why are you all saddling the horses now?"

One of them seemed eager to be the knowledgable one, "We're taking the cows out to graze early today. It looks like its going ta storm, so we're taking them out early while its clear and putting them in the barn early this afternoon." He said, glancing over at me during this explanation while he adjusted the girth of his saddle.

"I see. Be careful then." I continued out of the stable, stopping for a moment hearing one of the hands coughing. Mr. Labeouf's letter now came to mind as did my horrible dream... but I played it off as the cool morning air making him cough.

I checked on the corral of cows about to sent out to graze and rubbed the forehead of one or two close to the fence, then headed back into the house. Removing my jacket, I headed to my room and picked up Mr. Labeouf's letter then sat upon a sofa in the living room where it was warmest as Mama had had a fire going the night before. I began to feverishly read the letter, making sure I missed nothing. As I looked at his fancy and, rather feminine, signature I noticed a P.S on the bottom of the page and an arrow pointing to flip the paper.

I frowned. I didn't know if I wanted to read it or not with how what I had already read terrified and now paranoid me a bit. But I went on and turned the paper over.

It read as follows:

They tell us here, avoid close contact with people who seem sickly. I just thought I would warn you. Stay safe.

And that was all. I looked up and down the page like a madwoman seeking more information, but that was it. I stared into the fireplace now, reminded of the coughing ranch hand outside. It now worried me even more. But I decided to tell myself, he wasn't very close, Mattie, he was on the other end of the stable. That made me feel a little better...but I still worried.


	3. Chapter 3 Sis

I had gotten very little sleep that night. I would guess 3 or 4 hours at most, but I cannot be exact. I had lost my appetitte and not eaten much of my supper, and I did not rest well on a half-full stomach, but that is not what kept me up so much. Everytime I managed to fall asleep, nightmares like the previous one of my father kept reoccuring. These times, I was now in a morgue. Surrounded by people I knew, cared about... They were these sickly, decaying corpses, faces twisted into a silent scream in death.

In my last dream before I stayed awake for the night, I began to try and navigate my way around the morgue, carefully pushing the coffins out of my way. And I knocked one over. The sound echoed in the otherwise dead silent morgue making me jump automatically at the loud sound. And as the lid slid off, a very dead Tom Chaney jerked and twitched to his feet, groaning, like an animal practically begging to be put out of its misery. I never thought I would have the displeasure of seeing him again. My hand jerked to my side, expecting to find my father's old gun which had killed Chaney once upon my hip. I had not carried the gun with me for almost a year and I did not have it with me in the dream, either.

As I began to back up further from this walking corpse Chaney, I hit another coffin. This one also fell to the floor with a loud crashing noise and I was now pinned. If I had ran to my right or left I would smack into another coffin, and make matters only worse. Swallowing, I decided to see whom was behind me.

I could see only one bloodshot and cloudy red eye over my shoulder before I woke, flinching and clutching my pillow.

My pillow was damp with sweat so I flipped it over and laid back down on my back, staring up at the ceiling wide-eyed. These dreams were honestly more unsettleing than anything I'd seen or heard of before, surpassing even the news almost a year ago that my father had been killed. As embarrasing as it is to say, I needed the restroom after all of that. But thankfully, the storm had passed and all that remained was some thunder passing overhead.

At times like these I wish I hadn't insisted chamber pots kept under the beds were revolting, and that the outhouse suited me just fine...

However, sliding out of my bed on shaky legs, I looked around in the dark corners of my room for a moment then darted to my bedroom door and out into the hallway, not wanting to linger in one place for too long, for some silly reason. It was around 6:30 in the morning by then and there was enough light outside for me to navigate my way out the backdoor straight across to the outhouse, without the bother of having to ready a lantern for such a short trip. I grabbed my coat off of the rack, and slid it on.

I sprinted to it, flinging the old wooden door open, and then locked it behind myself in a hurry. As strange as it might seem to you now, I felt safer in a tiny wooden outhouse than I did in the safety of my own bed, in my own room. I had begun to feel my way around the dark outhouse, which, mind you, was not very enjoyable.

Before I could manage to even begin to get situated I began to hear a shuffling outside. This worried me. I was getting very jittery over the smallest of things. I stopped moving, as I hadn't got situated enough to even sit down, and concentrated on the shuffling outside. I let out a little yelp upon hearing something slam against the outdoor door, then smacked a hand over my mouth to prevent from making more noise. At the time this was a foolish action, a waste of time, if the person outside the door had been some kind of killer he would shot me through the wooden door!

However this...As I thought at the time, this THING did not carry a gun. Least it did not use it. It continued to bash itself against the outhouse door and common sense had escaped me to believe this could have been one of the ranch hands! Drunk, perhaps, not realizing what he was doing... I was detirmined to believe it was something far worse. It was one of the few times I wished I had not been right.

I backed further up into the outhouse, scrambling to stand up above the toilet itself with my back to the wall, as far as I could get from the door, and whatever was bashing itself against it, making these horrible groans. I wondered, would this be the end of me? I had faced death a couple of times before on my last excursion... This was somehow even more frightening.

I had begun to break a sweat now as the pounding upon the door got heavier, it seemed it was more detirmined to get inside of the outhouse now upon my fear growing. I kept a hand clasped over my mouth, trying to remain quiet as possible even though whatever it was knew I was in there, obivously.

The old outhouse door could hold its own no longer and came crashing down. My eyes had not had time to adjust to the light outside when the door fell, and all I could make out was the silhouette of a man, hunched over as he was. He had just begun to advance towards me when the sound of a shotgun boomed, echoing in the quiet morning air.

I had lost the ability to shriek now, I was so terrified. This would frighten anyone, but with what had been happening lately, made it even worse. However, I looked up upon hearing a familar voice, calling out to me. "Sis?"

* * *

Okay, I don't like this chapter very much. It's the worst so far, in my opinion. My apologies if you get confused at any point during this story. I'm not a writer all the time, art is more of my thing... so I'm not exactly _good _at this... Hopefully this story will help me get better :/


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